


In the Shadow of Ziost

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Supernatural
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, Jedi Knight Storyline Spoilers, Oral Sex, Sex around a disability, Spoilers for KOTFE, Spoilers for SOR, Spoilers for Season 12 of Supernatural, Spoilers for Season 13 of Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16033604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: On Odessen, the Hero of Tython reunites with the ex-Emperor's Wrath. Supernatural/SWTOR crossover. For the SPN Rare Ship Creation Challenge Round 21: dirty talk.





	In the Shadow of Ziost

“That’s the Hero of Tython.”

Mary heard the whisper even though she wasn’t meant to. The Cathar who’d said it was in Republic military gear. The Cathar he was talking to wore the uniform of Sith Intelligence. Members of the two halves of the Cathar diaspora, united in common cause. Sam – the Outlander – would call it an achievement of the Alliance with as much import as the hope of bringing down Lucifer and his mad son, the Emperor Crowley. The two Cathar were on the parapet, half way between the Imperial and Republic observation domes.

“I thought she was the Outlander’s mother,” the Imperial Cathar said.

“She is,” the Trooper replied gruffly. His uniform was Havoc squad.

“Jedi aren’t allowed children,” the Imperial Cathar replied, clipped diction sharp with surprise. How many Jedi had become Sith because they’d had a by-blow they’d refused to surrender to the Order? How many others had fled rather than face punishment for their indiscretion?

Mary walked out of earshot, heading along the parapet towards the War Room. She didn’t want to hear what the gruff Trooper had to say next.

Theron Shan, Sam’s advisor, was such a shame-born child. It was something he and Sam had in common. Sam’s brother and ally, Dean, shared that mutual understanding as well... along with a certain disregard for the rules. Theron was a spy. Dean was an underworld legend, the Voidhound, who had nonetheless saved the Republic with his pirate army and Mandalorian companion, Castiel Spar.

Those had been simpler times, with a moral certainty Mary missed: Empire versus Republic, Evil versus Good, Dark versus Light. The Hutts had been moral cowards for not choosing a side, for playing both sides against the middle. Mary had saved Tython three times during those days. Once during her remedial training, again from the Republic’s own stolen superweapon, and lastly from the Revanites. She was as much a legend as her sons.

She felt like a ghost, a relic from a bygone age. The Emperor she had killed to bring peace to the galaxy, a world without war her forbidden children could be happy in-- That body had been only one of many. He had discarded it and its unwilling owner like trash. He’d fed on the death of the war, feasted on the carnage of Yavin, and gorged on Ziost. Once Lucifer had no longer needed the shadowplay war as a food source, he’d brought the Eternal Fleet of his true Empire – Zakuul – to bear on Empire and Republic both. Crowley had usurped his father’s throne and finished that war to devastating end.

The Empire and Republic sat in resentful peace under their mutual conqueror, flashes of conflict between them sparking here or there, always carefully hiding the true strength of their militaries from Crowley instead of striking at him together. Dagon wrought destruction wherever she went, a loose cannon without Lucifer’s power to check her or Azazel’s stability to soothe her.

And Lucifer himself-- Lucifer was trapped in the mind of her son, a malignant stowaway after Crowley’s failed assassination attempt.

Mary had been brainwashed by the Emperor once, turned into a weapon and set upon friends and colleagues and family. The low hum of Lucifer’s faded presence on Odessen was like a gritty background noise even with the stone walls between them. Sam was patient zero.  She couldn’t imagine how Sam coped with that evil in the back of his mind; how he kept from falling to the Dark Side.

Mary had fallen with less provocation. The first time had been a secret marriage, instantly annulled by the Order when it had been discovered. She’d only avoided exile by ceding all custody of the children to John and agreeing never to see any of them again outside official Jedi business -- and even then only in the direst emergencies. The second--

Just the once, with Sithspit and Doc’s secret stash burning in her throat and belly, and spite burning in her heart. That taste of passion had been enough to leave a crack in her defenses, had given the Emperor the means to control her. Grand Master Satele Shan had been very clear on that point. She’d also been very clear that the time Mary had spent as John’s wife and the Emperor’s puppet had left Mary too tainted to be a Master of the Jedi Order. Battlemaster, yes. The Jedi’s weapon, but not a voice to make decisions about its future.

Maybe Master Shan had had a point. Mary had chosen to remember her time under the Emperor’s control when Orgus’s ghost had given her the opportunity on Rishi. Like Revan, she had chosen power over purity. Mary was here, part of an Alliance made up of the people she’d once sought to destroy, led by the disavowed Warden of the Jedi Order, his pirate brother, a Sith, a spy, and a Mandalorian defector who had never stopped being Mandalorian.

“You talk about being passionless, but out here – nothing but a saber in your hand and blood in the air… That’s the real you, the best you. I can see why the Jedi control your passions. Why you allow them to do so is beyond me,” Lord Scourge – Arthur – had said, years and years ago. At the time, she had parroted the lines they’d taught her on Tython about peace and serenity and the Light.

Mary had hated Scourge for refusing to give up the Dark Side, admired him for turning traitor to the Empire because its Emperor wanted to destroy the galaxy, and feared he was right about the tenuousness of her relationship with the Order. She had been a more aggressive combatant – and less polite with Var Suthra’s stupidity – than the Jedi thought proper. Despite her remedial training, she hadn’t been able to stop noticing Arthur’s handsomeness. How many times had she struck up a conversation just to hear his Kaasian accent?

Mary wasn’t Sith and never would be, but she was hardly Jedi. Like Ashara Zavros, like the Knights of Zakuul and the Voss and the Scions, she was-- something else. Neither light nor dark.

Grey, like a ghost.

She wasn’t the only ghost on Odessen. Perhaps that was what had her so morose.

Lord Scourge wasn’t manifested. Mary couldn’t see him, but she could sense him in the base. Mary had had to kill him on Ziost to save Dean. More than that, Mary knew that death was better than living as the Emperor’s possessed puppet, watching yourself turned weapon against those you held most dear.

Her holo chimed. When Mary answered it, the Outlander appeared.

“Mom,” Sam said. “Look, um. Could you come to the War Room? I don’t really want to say this over the holo.” He was tense. She could see it in the set of his shoulders and hear it in his voice. That wasn’t usual. Sam was too skilled a diplomat to let his anxiety show.

“Jedi=come quickly//Exciting news!” Teeseven chirped and screeched in the background.

Mary nodded, and turned off her holo. She was headed there anyway. Whatever it was, Teeseven was thrilled and Sam was anxious. Had they found her Padawan, Jack Carson? Sith’s blood, just the thought made her tense: having the former Child of the Emperor who had chosen to be Jedi in the presence of the Emperor’s unwilling host. Dean resented that Jack had filled the void created by giving up her children so long ago. Having Jack underfoot with Dean on the base-- That thought made her tense, too. Surely Sam, whose first loyalty was always to his brother, would be anxious by extension.

Mary stepped into the elevator and flipped the switch to lower the elevator to the War Room. The subterranean air was chilled and sterile. Scourge’s presence was even stronger. The floor was still rough in places, but the walls were mostly smooth. Sam and Dean both were in the War Room. Koth, Lana, and Theron were absent, which was also unusual. Darth Imperius, the usual point of contact for the dead, was also absent. Teeseven was rocking back and forth on his stabilizers in excitement.

“What’s the situation?” Mary asked.

“Teeseven found us a present,” Dean said, voice laced with sarcasm.

“Look, Mom, we need-- all the allies we can get to fight Zakuul. But if you’re not comfortable, just say the word,” Sam said, holding his hands out in placation. “We can find someone else.”

“Outlander+Voidhound=incorrect. Sith=/=enemy. Sith=good friend!” Teeseven chirped, still rocking on his stabilizers.

“I killed Scourge. He’s dead,” Mary told the droid bluntly.

“True, but I wasn’t very good at it.”

She knew that voice. The last time she’d heard it, it had been taunting a broken and bleeding Dean, saber raised over his head for the final blow-- Mary had thrown her twin sabers, slicing Scourge’s arm clean from his body before using the Force to pull her weapons back to her hands.

Mary remembered the relieved look in Scourge’s eyes right before she’d struck the final blow.

Mary’s fingers went numb. Her heart was thudding dully in her chest.

“The Emperor’s ‘gift of immortality’ counted for more than we thought,” Dean said gruffly.

Scourge stepped out from the hallway to the Force User’s Enclave. He still had those broad shoulders and dramatic Sith armor. His eyes were still gold from the Dark Side’s power. His hands were folded behind his back in Imperial at-ease.

“But it did take me a long time to heal, and I’m not eager to repeat the experience,” Arthur said sternly.

“It’s up to you, Mom,” Sam said gently.

“It’s fine,” Mary snapped. It wasn’t fine. She didn’t know what it was. Lord Scourge was still Sith, still the man who had tried to destroy Ziost and murder her son. It wasn’t his fault, but it had been his face.

He was also the man who had stood by her in destroying the Emperor. Like John, Arthur had been the voice validating her anger, who had believed her fierceness was a gift instead of her shame.

“We’ll, uh, leave you two alone,” Sam said, pushing himself up from where he leaned against the central table. He and Dean exchanged looks as they left the War Room. Teeseven made a low, worried whistle as he followed. Her reaction wasn’t what the droid had been expecting.

Arthur stepped closer, his face impassive save for his eyes. He could make them ice-cold at will, vaguely psychopathic, she knew. Like thinking two things at once to make his mind impossible to read, it was a skill he’d learned to keep the Emperor’s trust. He was deliberately allowing her to see how happy he was to see her and how badly he wanted her forgiveness.

It was too much. Mary didn’t want to deal with any of it.

“Just stay away from me,” she said bluntly, then turned and left the War Room.

~*~

Arthur kept his distance, as much as was possible on the tiny Odessen base. She saw glances of him out of the corner of her eye, passed him in the Enclave hallway. He didn’t speak to her or approach her. His presence still rankled. So did the guilt: she wasn’t being fair. As a Jedi, she was supposed to forgive him blindly for being brainwashed and parrot the lie that he could be redeemed to the Light.

He couldn’t be anymore redeemed than she could.

Kaliyo chose Mary for her strike team to the Spire. Mary studied the stolen intelligence until her eyes turned gritty and the Spire’s hallways were burned into her brain. When the time for the op finally came, Mary wasn’t pleased to see Scourge waiting by the stolen Zakuulan shuttle.

“I thought Sam was our third,” Mary said, halting.

“He was. He went off into the woods to grill the Emperor for intel and didn’t come back,” Kaliyo said bluntly. “Stupid. We’re going anyway.”

It was a stupid thing for Sam to do, stupid and reckless, but their intelligence was getting staler by the minute. Teeseven would want her to drop the mission and go after her son, to risk the safety of the galaxy for the one she loved.

“It’s fine,” Mary said curtly, shouldering past Arthur to climb the shuttle’s gangway. If they could slice the Gemini frequency, they could control the entire fleet. She couldn’t abandon the mission for one man now anymore than she could have in the Dark Temple for Doc.

Teeseven had been disappointed in her then, too.

They spent the ride to Zakuul in silence. Mary meditated, centering herself in the Light and reviewing the holomap of the Spire in her head.

“You two exes or something?” Kaliyo asked.

“I fail to see what bearing that has on our mission,” Arthur said icily.

“Oh, yeah. Tell you what, when we get back to Odessen you two can celebration-bang in the shuttle and I’ll keep Major Paws distracted.”

Arthur glared furiously, but he wasn’t stupid enough to Force-choke the pilot for insolence. Though, as a Force-blind Imperial with that mouth, there was no way Kaliyo hadn’t been choked or electrocuted before. Clearly it hadn’t had any effect.

~*~

The stolen intelligence hadn’t included all the droid patrols. They’d ended up pinned between two groups and cutting their comms to eliminate the possibility of radio chatter betraying their position. They’d managed to kill the first group before it could send any signals.

They had to pick up the pace: the first patrol to see the debris would certainly summon reinforcements.

There were three Skytroopers between them and the control center’s door.

“I can crush the left droid’s central processor. Mary can put the second in stasis, cloak herself in the Force, and get to the door. Can you one-shot the right?” Arthur whispered. Kaliyo hefted her rifle silently. Mary gestured the count-down.

Three. Two. One.

Mary reached out with the Force, freezing the droid in invisible ice. The first raised off the ground, twitching as its processor buckled under invisible pressure. Kaliyo’s rifle whined and fired as Mary swirled herself in Force and dashed with Jedi speed past her frozen opponent. She heard Arthur leap behind her, destroying the frozen droid--

The alarms started screaming before Mary could even touch the door lock.

“What the Hell?” Mary and Kaliyo demanded at once.

The hallway blew apart. Blaster fire shot from the hole, announcing to everyone on the floor above and below where the attackers were. Out from the smoke and dust stepped the gruff Trooper from the parapet, as well as his team of blaster-heads.

The team of blaster-heads who was supposed to be eight blocks away creating a diversion.

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Kaliyo demanded.

“Rescuing you!” the Trooper, Jorgan, said gruffly. “You’re welcome.”

“Does it look like we need rescuing?” Arthur asked, his voice dangerously soft, his saber shifting from a defensive to an offensive position.

The Skytroopers’ feet were clattering on the stairs. The elevator light at the end of the hallway was oscillating. They couldn’t get through the door before reinforcements arrived, either to steal or to destroy.

Mary grabbed Arthur’s wrist.

“Kill him later. We’ve got to move.”

They fled. They encountered Knights and zigged. Skytroopers and zagged. Down and out and down and out, spiraling like whomp-rats in a canyon toward the inevitable point where they were surrounded with nowhere to run.

“We take as many with them as we can,” Mary panted, raising her sabers. Her muscled burned with exertion, and she was spattered with blood and droid oil. It was glorious.

“Death before capture,” Arthur agreed. He was grinning with joyous Sith bloodlust.

“Bag that,” Kaliyo said. She attached three of the Republic explosives to the nearest wall. “Overwatch shuttle depot is through this building. We’re hijacking a ship and getting out of here. You’re going to want to duck.”

Arthur pulled Mary close and pinned her against the far wall, covering his own head with one heavily-gauntleted arm. Mary’s armor was light, built for speed and dexterity. Arthur was built like a tank and armored like one.

Kaliyo blew the wall. They heard the screams and the crying instantly, and the sterile stink of medicine.

The building was a hospital.

It was too late now. Mary could sense more Knights of Zakuul approaching. There would be droids bearing down on the explosion in addition to the ones chasing them.

“Damn it. Let’s go,” Kaliyo said. They rushed through the dead and the dying, the wounded cowering away in fear. Kaliyo threw grenades at the other outer wall. They ran through just behind the uni-directional concussion blast.

Mary put the lead Knight in stasis. Arthur jumped in. The droids’ algorithms looked at his body mass and armor and deemed him the biggest threat. Their shots bounced uselessly off his saber and force-shield. Mary rushed in behind them, cutting the droids down with whirling strikes from her twin blades.

The Knights rushed her at first, realizing the droids had erred in their targeting priority.

When Arthur started running his mouth, most of them reconsidered, turning to charge at him with blind rage. Kaliyo and the Troopers picked off what Mary didn’t kill. They used the last of their explosives breaching the Overwatch depot.

Mary punched the lead Trooper, Jorgan, in the mouth the minute they jumped to hyperspace.

“Congratulations, you just destroyed the one chance we had of saving the galaxy,” Mary spat furiously.

“You blew up a hospital!” Jorgan growled, holding his jaw with one hand.

“To escape a position we wouldn’t have been in had you not abandoned your post,” Arthur said icily. “Not very professional.”

“What was I supposed to do?” Jorgan argued. “Leave you to die?”

“You should have left us to complete our mission! And if you honestly thought our mission was a failure, you should have commandeered a shuttle and rammed it into the Spire. If we can’t have the Gemini frequency, neither should Crowley,” Mary said tightly. Pain radiated from every muscle, every fiber of her being. “Now we accomplished nothing.”

“In the Republic, we don’t leave a man behind,” Jorgan said cuttingly.

“Kaliyo and I are not Republic,” Arthur stated. “If this was an Imperial mission, I would strike you down where you stand.”

“Yeah, the building full of dead civilians tipped me off that you two are Imps.” Jorgan looked at Mary. “But I expected better of you. We’ll let the Outlander decide which of us did the right thing, huh?”

~*~

The Outlander did decide: Major Malfunction had ruined the mission, but Kaliyo was exiled.

“You weren’t there,” Mary argued hotly, fury still singing through her veins. “We had no way of knowing what that building was.”

“That may be true,” Sam said calmly, “but this isn’t the first time Kaliyo has put civilians in the cross-fire. It has to be the last. There have to be consequences.”

“Spoken like a true member of the Jedi Council,” Arthur said bitterly. He turned on his heel and strode from the Military Hangar, his cape swishing behind him. Mary turned from Sam. He might be born of her body, but he was Master Singer’s son.

Mary used the Force to speed her run enough to catch up to Lord Scourge.

“Come on,” Mary ordered. Arthur followed her to the Cantina. Over the barkeep-droid’s protest, she shoved a bottle of Sithspit into Arthur’s hand. She grabbed a bottle of something green and a bottle of something blue.

Alcohol, hating the Council, and Arthur had ended in a horrible mistake last time. Mary wasn’t in the mood to learn from it.

“What are we drinking to?” Arthur asked when they arrived at Mary’s quarters. Mary set her bottles on the table.

“Unconsciousness,” Mary said tightly. She pulled off her boots and threw them in the corner, followed by her dark brown robes. She threw the white inner robe in the pile as well, leaving only her loose white shirt and dark brown pants. Mary picked up the blue stuff and pulled out the stopper. She took a long drink from the bottle. It burned. With a Jedi’s metabolism it was going to take both bottles to get her as drunk as she wanted to be. Mary took another drink. She was about a quarter through the bottle, and everything was barely buzzing.

“Lose the cape,” Mary said, dropping into the chair. “And after this, we’re hitting Nar Shadda. No more browns and beiges. I’m thinking black, leather, and… I don’t know. Purple or dark red.” Mary thought about the Sith she’d killed before. Those colors sounded right for flouting the Council’s dress code.

“There are no glasses,” Arthur fussed. He did unclasp the cape and drape it carefully on a chair. He pulled off his armored gloves, bracers, and his heavy chest plate. After a moment’s hesitation he pulled off his boots as well. He sat in one of the battered chairs. He smelled like stale sweat and blood.

“Drink from the bottle.” Mary propped up her feet on the edge of the chair across from her. She had no idea who had decided she needed a table with four chairs, but there they were. At least that golden pain-in-the-ass droid of Sam’s was good for something.

Arthur wrinkled his nose in distaste, but did as instructed.

“Mary, I’m curious,” Arthur said after taking a sip from the Sithspit and savoring the numb-and-tingle in his mouth. “The last time we drank to the Jedi Council’s short-sightedness, you revenge-shagged me on your floor just to spite them. I believe your exact words were, ‘I’ll show her “undue influence”.’”

“Grand Master Shan was being an ass,” Mary said, leaning back in her chair. She stared at the ceiling. “Now Sam says she’s off meditating in the woods with Marr’s ghost while the Galaxy burns.”

“Peace, serenity, knowledge, and harmony, with a ghost. She certainly hit every checkmark,” Arthur groused.

_There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force._

Mary could recite the words. Satele’s peace came at the cost of those who were killed by Crowley every day, just as it had once been at the expense of those killed and terrorized by the Empire.

There had been no serenity, no harmony while the Alliance teams had fled the Spire.

Mary closed her eyes. She could still hear the screams from the hospital’s patients and staff. They hadn’t known. If Jorgan had just stuck to the plan it wouldn’t have mattered. All those people were dead, and Crowley still had control of the fleet.

“Peace is a lie,” Mary said bitterly. She took another drink without opening her eyes. She could feel Arthur’s approval, and the dark red of Dark Side power radiating from him. The downward-triangle counterpart to the many-pointed star. Her many-pointed star.

She wasn’t choosing the Dark Side over the Light. She was tired of having that discussion with her boys and with Scourge.

But she wasn’t choosing the Light over the Dark, either. Not if it meant charging in like an idiot and getting a bunch of civilians killed for nothing. She’d been right to leave Doc behind in the Dark Temple. Jorgan’s foolishness only proved it. He should have stuck to the plan, and Kaliyo was blamed for it because Jorgan’s decision was more palatable.

“It’s a trite idea, but I firmly believe the ends do justify the means,” Scourge had said during one of their debates so long ago. She’d argued against him then.

Mary took another drink, her throat burning with more than the booze. How far she’d fallen.

Scourge would follow her on his knees right into the heart of the Dark. He’d seen her face in a vision, striking down the Emperor. He had betrayed Revan to secure immortality from the Emperor, just so he could wait however many centuries just for her to be born. Three hundred years, biding his time patiently in the Empire, until he’d seen her on Quesh. He’d thrown away all his power and position in the Empire, his entire fortune, just to see Mary fulfill her destiny.

Stayed away when she’d wanted it. Come the minute she’d called.

Mary _liked_ that, and she hated how much she enjoyed it. Owning people was what Sith did.

So was blowing up hospitals.

Mary’s throat was still burning. She would be thrice-damned in the deepest Sarlacc pit on Tatooine before she’d _cry._

Mary swung her feet down and slammed the bottle on the table. She slid forward and into Arthur’s lap, straddling him on the chair. She tangled her fingers in his curly hair and buried her face in his neck.

“Your loyalty is to me,” Mary muttered into his skin.

“Yours is the face in my vision,” Arthur agreed. “Not your sons.”

Arthur might not be immortal once the Emperor was dead, but Mary didn’t say that out loud. She didn’t want to give him false hope. Being aboard ship with him for years had taught Mary the price of immortality. Arthur could feel pressure, hot, cold, or decreased function. But he felt no pain. He derived no pleasure from a caress. He couldn’t become erect or orgasm. He couldn’t see color at all. He had no sense of smell and no sense of taste, which meant no appetite. Scourge took his nutrients and calories in a liquid suspension so he didn’t have to force himself to eat.

The only sense that hadn’t been dulled was his hearing. Too risky for Emperor to tamper with in his killing machine, she supposed.

“Good,” Mary whispered into Arthur’s ear, keeping her voice low. The alcohol made her voice husky. “Now take off your clothes, and come to bed.”

“You have all the finesse of a bull rancor,” Arthur purred, but he obediently pulled Mary’s ass up onto his forearms. He stood without dropping her, an impressive feat of strength and control. Mary bit his earlobe as a reward. Scourge carried her to the bed. He lowered her onto it, covering her body with his. The heavy weight of him was deeply pleasing, like the weighted blankets Arthur favored.

Anything was better than the weight of her failures.

Mary kept running her fingers through his short hair. The almost-curls were sticky with sweat, but the tips still tickled.

“Your hair is so soft,” Mary narrated. Her legs were hooked around his waist, one arm across his shoulders from the carry. Mary tightened them, urging Arthur tighter against her body. He was warm, solid. Adoring, under all that Kaasian reserve.

“I can’t obey your directive to remove my clothing like this,” Arthur purred dryly.

Mary harumphed, but released him. The circulating air was cool through her thin shirt. She pushed herself up on her elbows.

“You better make a show of it,” Mary stated. Arthur smirked, vain as a cat. He pulled off the quilted jacket he wore beneath his armor to protect his bones from the weight. Then he removed the tight black shirt that protected his skin from the jacket. Everything was sticky with sweat. His skin was peppered with scars from times the armor hadn’t been sufficient. He was built for combat, not show: the muscles on his arms and shoulders were well-defined, but the adipose deposits cushioning his organs and fascia were intact. There were faint ridges down his chest, and no hair to speak of.

There was Sith blood in Arthur, not just Sith idealogy. He wasn’t half Sith, not with that pale skin, but not for the first time Mary wondered which ancestor of his had dallied with a human slave.

“Lovely,” Mary said aloud. “Now the rest. Go on.”

Arthur unbuckled his armored belt with a delicious slowness. He loosened the plates of his greaves to slide them off. He set his armor carefully aside on the floor. Mary bit her lip, motioning with one finger for him not to stop. Arthur smirked again. He undid the catch of his quilted under-greaves. He slid them off his body, pulled off his socks, and then slid off the soft cotton pants. After sliding off his practical standard-Imperial-issue undershorts, he was finally naked. The ridges went all the way down, and between his legs was as bare as his chest.

He was so much thinner and shorter without the armor, but still…

“Thighs like blaster cannons instead of tree trunks,” Mary said aloud. She scooted up the bed. She reached up and shoved the pillows off so she wouldn’t ruin them.  

“You fight like a shyrack,” Arthur said, sliding onto the bed. He slid her thighs up over his own, his body in the middle of her spread legs. His hands were warm, as thick and blunt as the rest of him, sliding up her body. His fingers were deft on the catches of her shirt, and with the fastenings of her breastband. “You’re built like one.”

“We make a good team,” Mary said, even as Arthur bent to nuzzle against her neck. Mary ran her fingers over his skin, smooth between the rough patches of scars. There were faint ridges along his vertebrae as well. Mary ran the fingers of her right hand between the triangular ridges, into the softness of his hair, and back down. Arthur didn’t kiss – without a sense of taste it was just slimy weirdness. But he could feel the texture of her nipple against his tongue, feel the give of her breast against his mouth.

Mary slid her eyes closed and arched her back. One of his hands massaged her other breast. His thumb dug into her side where breast met body.

“Harder,” Mary said thickly. She curled the fingers of her right hand into his hair so he couldn’t pull his mouth away. “Mmmm. It’s like a backrub but it--” Arthur obliged, small tight circles up and down along the edge that made her breast ache deliciously. “Just like that, exactly like that. Breastbands were the worst invention in the Galaxy-- Mmmm, yes, kriff, that’s it--”

Arthur tilted his head towards her breastbone. Mary let go of his hair so he could switch breasts. Mary kept up the litany of pleasure as he made her left breast ache as sweetly as the right. Then he switched back, and back again, until between her legs ached as well. When Mary tried to rut against his torso Arthur began nuzzling his way down her belly. He pulled her shirt the rest of the way open, then undid the fastenings to her pants.

Mary lifted her hips.

Arthur pulled away long enough to pull them off. He kelt on the floor at the edge of the bed. At some point he’d floated the bottle of Sithspit closer. Arthur took a sip without breaking eye contact.

“You sadist,” Mary accused. She shivered. She knew what was coming.

Arthur pulled her along the bed. He draped her knees over his shoulders. Then he pressed his mouth between her legs where she wanted it most.

Sithspit was fermented Quesh venom. At first her inner and outer lips went numb – and then they erupted into vicious tingles.

Mary swore. She gripped the sheets and called Arthur every name she’d ever heard from a dockworker in anger. Arthur held her hips down, his mouth warm and wet and insistent. Slowly the tingles faded into a heavy, full feeling that reached all the way up into her gut.

“You-- If you ever get your sense of touch back,” Mary panted, “I’m pouring that on your penis and see how you like it.”

Arthur chuckled.

“Jedi pillow talk,” he said. “Call it a dick.”

“From the man who decided a good after-sex line was that you thought you were going to slaughter the entire base until you saw my face,” Mary said crossly. “You are a dick. You have a penis.”

It startled a laugh out of him. A real laugh, high and staccato, almost a giggle -- not the carefully cultured laugh he usually affected.

Arthur took another sip of the Sithspit, swishing it around his mouth before swallowing. Arthur leaned forward slowly. Then he pressed his tongue to Mary’s clit.

Mary whimpered through the brief numbness, then shrieked into one hand through the tingles. She clamped her thighs tight against Arthur’s head. She dug her heels into his back and pressed her other hand against his skull because he was not stopping. It was too much. She could feel it all the way up to her breasts.

It was wonderful. Her orgasm was building between her legs.

“So close,” Mary panted when the tingling wore off. “Kriff, just a little more.” She could feel her pulse in every nerve ending. Everything was tight. She needed--

Arthur pulled away, reaching around her leg to rub his thumb against her clit through its hood.

He’d run his thumb around the lip of the bottle first. Between her legs exploded into sensation again.

“You bastard, you-- absolute--” Mary lost her words. Arthur put his mouth on her again, adding suction to the rubbing, working her over with mouth and hand both--

Mary gave into her orgasm completely. Her pleasure seeped up and outward, to fingertips and toes, leaving her panting and warm and wonderful in its wake.

Arthur was rubbing the back of his knuckles along the juncture of one splayed thigh. Occasionally he brushed them lightly across her vaginal lips.

“That sends-- mmm – electricity up my-- kriff-- whole body,” Mary said tightly.

“Mmm,” Arthur agreed. “You’ll forgive me if I recall incorrectly, but last time I believe this ended with you rutting against my hand until you climaxed again.”

“I did,” Mary gasped. She was so sensitive. The too-much was starting to feel a little good. It would quickly turn into feeling a lot good. It ended exactly as Arthur remembered, with her shamelessly grinding against his hand and begging him not to stop. “It’s the callouses. They rub-- just right.”

“I have a few more since last time,” Arthur promised. His touches were feather-light. She’d just been sated and he was making her want again.

“Firmer,” Mary commanded. Arthur smirked. He opened his hand, pressing it flush against her. His middle finger was rubbing slow circles on her clitoral hood. “Don’t you dare stop.” She kept up the monologue, kriffs and goods and don’t stops, because the sound of her voice in pleasure and the sight of her writhing were the only things Arthur could derive any enjoyment from. The Emperor had seen to that.

He was talented with his hands. The pressure in her womb grew, her body tightening and her words becoming more incoherent, until she came.

She was panting like she’d run ten miles. Arthur pulled her forward, off the bed and onto his lap.

Mary rested her forehead on his shoulder as the afterglow faded. She stank. He stank. The coverlet was probably unsalvageable. Arthur’s breath was even and steady.

“We should probably take a shower,” he said pragmatically. Mary nodded. She let him carry her to the small bathroom. The water was barely warm with limited pressure, but she was able to scrub the stink of battle and the stickiness of sex away. Mary spared a thought to reach out with the Force and pull the ruined coverlet off the bed.

Mary batted at Arthur’s hands until he stopped trying to take the pouf to scrub himself. Cleaning him up afterward and dirty talk during was the closest she could get to not being a selfish lover.

When Mary stepped out of the shower cubicle to grab the threadbare towel she froze.

The eyes staring back at her in her reflection weren’t blue.

Mary blinked, hoping it was just another in a series of nightmares. Her reflection didn’t change. Her eyes weren’t the dark gold, almost orange, that Arthur had from long association with the Dark Side. The pale yellow was gold all the same.

She couldn’t have had gold eyes when she stepped off the shuttle. Sam would have said something. Mary raised her hands to her face, tracing beneath her eyes with shaking fingers. She’d done this to herself sleeping with Lord Scourge again.

“What is it?” Scourge asked. “What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t see color. In monochromatic vision, blue and yellow would be virtually indistinguishable. She could lie and he would believe her. She could stave off the inevitable for a few more moments, but as soon as she left her quarters--

Mary had thought about changing her wardrobe in protest. Now she had no choice. She was no Jedi. Not anymore. Not so tainted with the Dark Side her eyes had changed color.

Her boys couldn’t see her like this.

“We-- We have to leave Odessen,” Mary said urgently. She turned to Arthur. “Now. And I-- Say I passed out and carry me to the ship.” She couldn’t holo the boys, or leave a message. They would see. They would _know_ her shame, even if not the particulars _._

“All right,” Arthur said with a half shrug. “We should probably get dressed first.”

After she dried off, Mary pulled on the armor she’d worn to Zakuul. Packing a bag would make it obvious she wasn’t just passed out. Whatever she could fit in her pockets and her sabers – that’s all she could take. Mary grabbed the holonecklace of John and her datapad.

Lord Scourge wrapped her in his cape and picked her up in a soldier’s carry. Mary closed her eyes. She made herself keep her body loose, lax. She was passed out drunk. 

Sam wouldn’t approve when he heard. It was better than if he -- or Dean -- knew the truth. Mary just-- She couldn’t. It was better this way.

And what if the Emperor decided that with her weak again, he no longer needed to hide in the Outlander?

She would never be a puppet of his again. She couldn’t. It was-- just temporary. Just until she figured this out.

Scourge wouldn’t know the difference to judge, not that he’d judge anyway. Arthur would be thrilled when she told him. If she told him.

It seemed like an eternity before Arthur slid her carefully down his body and onto her feet. He pulled the dark cape gently off her body. The ship lights were lowered in night mode. Her protocol droid stood anxiously at the exit door.

“Where are we going?” Arthur asked mildly, tilting his head to the side. For all he knew, she’d had a vision in the bathroom. Odessen or elsewhere, Arthur believed her destiny would lead her back to the Emperor and she would destroy him for good. Which path they took to get there didn’t matter to Lord Scourge at all. 

Arthur fastened his cape to his armor.

“Nar Shaddaa,” Mary said softly. “To start. Then-- we go from there.” Scourge nodded once, then headed to the cockpit.

Mary reached up and traced her fingertips once more beneath her new Sith eyes. Revan had been Jedi and Sith both, and she had crippled the Emperor for three hundred years. Mary would find a way to make this work in her favor. She would find a way to destroy the Emperor, as Scourge had foreseen.

Then – perhaps – her boys would forgive her.  

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Drew Karpyshyn can eat my entire ass and EA can pry FemRevan out of my cold dead hands.


End file.
